SPRING FLING
Falling in love with Jesus is not just a fling. It’s time to grow in Christ!
March 29th, 2023
by Design
Ecclesiastes 4:12b, ‘A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.’ (NIV)
Not only do we need the Lord, we need one another also. We were made for each other, for fellowship, for laborers, for community. We are stronger together. We can persevere longer when we do it together. Our survival rate is higher. The greater in number, the larger the percentage and the better the capacity. We were never meant to hoe this row alone. We plant together and we harvest together, and together, we lift one another up to higher standards and synergistic productivity in spreading the Good News to others who have not yet heard and met Jesus.
Every week, we teach a 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (by Stephen R. Covey) class. Except we teach it for parolees. So they can learn a different way, a better way, a higher way; to make choices and live life better, and for many, for the first time ever, successfully. In many instances, each person is stronger together. Alone, they struggle; they flounder; they make poor choices. Together, we are helping change the trajectory of people’s lives.
Every time, when we get to the end of another class, they are so proud of their achievement and everything they have learned—the differences the material taught to them has made in their new lives. But the disappointment is great, realizing the class is finished, and now they walk forward, alone. That’s why we have monthly workshops to help them not journey all alone, to bring all of us back into a community together, one that is working synergistically to bring positive change and camaraderie.
Recently, one of our young men had been wrestling in his recovery. He’d been through a lot. He had done so good during the course of the class. He hit a rough patch. When we got back together for a workshop, he admitted where it began to waver and became wonky. He said it all started to crumble when he began to think he was no longer a part of something greater than just himself; he felt alone and insignificant, not a piece of a family anymore. It was beautiful to see his new brothers and sisters pick him up and love him back to wholeness, to forgive him and help him become again a part of something more immense, more meaningful. They helped him know he is not alone, and that together, we are stronger, more able, than when we are alone. Psalm 68:6a, ‘God sets the lonely in families.’ (NIV)
Isaiah 55:10-11, ‘”As the snow and rain that fall from heaven do not return until they have accomplished their purpose, soaking the earth and causing it to sprout with new life, providing seed to sow and bread to eat, so also will be the Word that I speak; it does not return to Me unfulfilled. My Word performs My purpose and fulfills the mission I sent it to accomplish.”’ (TPT)
